News Service:

John Brighton, Vice President for Research and Economic Development,
(515) 294-6344, brighton@iastate.edu

Mike Krapfl, News Service, (515) 294-4917, mkrapfl@iastate.edu

Iowa State awards $1 million for research promoting Iowa economic
development

AMES, Iowa -- Iowa State University researchers will use $1 million in
state economic development dollars to research and develop new technologies
that could create or boost Iowa businesses.

The grants will support Iowa State researchers as they develop new
single-dose vaccines for humans, study ways to boost ethanol production and
sustainability, commercialize 3-D software that helps doctors plan and train
for surgery, use laser-based sensors to improve the combustion of
alternative fuels, see if a co-product of cellulosic ethanol production can
stabilize soil beneath highways and advance five other projects with
commercial potential.

"This state funding is helping to move Iowa State University research
from the laboratory into the marketplace," said John Brighton, Iowa State's
vice president for research and economic development. "The Grow Iowa Values
Fund has helped several university researchers develop technologies and
establish startup companies. And it has helped Iowa State make progress
toward its goal of encouraging university researchers to be
entrepreneurs."

In 2005 Iowa lawmakers agreed to appropriate $5 million per year for 10
years to support research projects at Iowa's Regent universities. The money
is to be matched by the universities. And the research is to focus on
projects with high potential to boost the state's economic development
efforts.

This is the third time Iowa State has awarded the competitive grants. The
grants in this round of awards total $1,000,050 and range from $150,444 to
$18,954.

The largest grant in this round goes to a research team led by Michael
Wannemuehler, a professor of veterinary microbiology and preventive
medicine. He'll work with Chris Minion, a professor of veterinary
microbiology and preventive medicine, and Balaji Narasimhan, a professor of
chemical and biological engineering, to develop a protective vaccine against
pneumonic plague.

Their research combines two new technologies: the modification of sugars
to boost the immune response caused by certain proteins and the use of
biodegradable polymer nanospheres to deliver vaccines.

A key advantage of the combination would be a vaccine that only requires
a single dose to be effective.

Wannemuehler said the research will focus on a vaccine for pneumonic
plague because the infectious agent could be a weapon used by bioterrorists.
He said the disease is easy to use as a weapon, can be made resistant to
antibiotics and can significantly affect susceptible populations. The
research team's vaccine technology could also be applied to anthrax,
influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and can be extended to
all age groups, including infant vaccines.

All that would add up to good news for public health.

"If we can immunize against viral pathogens so there's a good immune
response, we may be better able to control diseases such as avian influenza
and SARS," Wannemuehler said.

The other awards in this round of Iowa State's competition for Grow Iowa
Values Fund grants are:

$149,233 to Jay-lin Jane, a professor of food science and human
nutrition; Sathaporn Srichuwong, a post-doctoral research associate in food
science and human nutrition; Charles Hurburgh, a professor of agricultural
and biosystems engineering; Tony Pometto, a professor of food science and
human nutrition; Larry Johnson, director of the Center for Crops Utilization
Research; and Jacek Koziel, an associate professor of agricultural and
biosystems engineering. They'll develop a technique for converting uncooked
dry-grind corn into ethanol. The technique reduces the energy required to
produce ethanol while boosting fuel production. Eliminating the heat
treatment also allows processors to extract a high-value protein that can be
used to make biodegradable plastics.

$113,462 to Tong Wang, an associate professor of food science and human
nutrition; Johnson of the Center for Crops Utilization Research; and
Pometto
of the department of food science and human nutrition. They're looking for
effective ways to remove oil from the co-products of corn fermentation for
ethanol production. The oil could be used to produce biodiesel. And reducing
the oil in the co-product would improve the quality of livestock feeds made
from it.

$109,533 to Eliot Winer, an assistant professor of mechanical
engineering; and James Oliver, director of the Virtual Reality Applications
Center. They're working to commercialize a software package that uses 3-D
visualization to help doctors model, manipulate and manage data. The result
should be better surgical planning and training. And that should improve
patient care.

$100,397 to Johnny Wong, a professor of computer science; and Wallapak
Tavanapong, an associate professor of computer science. They have invented
techniques and software tools that objectively assess the quality of
colonoscopy procedures. This round of funding will help them to improve
their measurements and software, test it in several medical facilities and
commercialize the invention.

$95,001 to Arun Somani, professor and chair of electrical and computer
engineering; and Suraj Kothari, professor of electrical and computer
engineering. They're working on a tool that will focus software testing and
re-testing on the parts of the software code that have been changed. That
will improve the efficiency of software testing. It will also be designed to
work with another software testing tool developed by EnSoft Corp., an Ames
software company.

$93,775 to Halil Ceylan, an assistant professor of civil, construction
and environmental engineering; and Kasthurirangan Gopalakrishnan, a
post-doctoral research associate in civil, construction and environmental
engineering. They want to replace chemicals used to stabilize soils beneath
road projects with lignin, a co-product of ethanol produced from plant
fiber.

$86,814 to Terrence Meyer, an assistant professor of mechanical
engineering. Meyer will study how laser-based sensors can analyze combustion
systems that burn alternative fuels. The sensors allow researchers to peer
into combustion chambers for a better understanding of fuel sprays, fuel-air
mixing, energy release and the like. The goal is to improve combustion
efficiency, encourage the use of alternative fuels and reduce
pollutants.

$82,437 to Hank Harris, a professor of animal science and veterinary
diagnostic and production animal medicine; Matthew Erdman, director of
research and development for Sirrah LLC, a company in the Iowa State
Research Park that's developing vaccines for the pork industry; and Ryan
Vander Veen, a graduate student in animal science. They're developing new
technology that improves the effectiveness of a vaccine for porcine
reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus, an illness that costs the pork
industry an estimated $600 million every year.

$18,954 to Suzanne Hendrich, a professor of food science and human
nutrition. Hendrich will test a new dietary fiber product based on corn bran
to see how it affects human digestion.

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Quick look

State economic development grants will support 10 Iowa State research
projects that could lead to startup companies or develop technology for
existing businesses. The projects include developing human and livestock vaccines,
researching techniques to boost ethanol production, commercializing 3-D
software tools that improve surgical procedures, studying the combustion of alternative fuels and examining new uses for the co-products of ethanol production.

Quote

"This state funding is helping to move Iowa State University research from
the laboratory into the marketplace. The Grow Iowa Values Fund
has helped several university researchers develop technologies and establish
startup companies. And it has helped Iowa State make progress toward its
goal of encouraging university researchers to be entrepreneurs."

John Brighton, Iowa State's vice president for research and economic
development